Send the Japanese to my home. I will take a family of 3-4, many jobs, open-arms.

I hear you, I just want to keep the optimism alive, most of the people hard hit have no home, and why rebuild in a place that has more than its fair
share of seismic activity, and possible long-term radiation exposure.

Can you tell me about the process of possibly getting them here, or even staying for 6-months or longer?

I'll take in a family for as long as needed. I have a house in a middle class neighborhood, great schools, great people.
I'm in Quebec Canada, just across the river from Ottawa, everything his close by, public transportation and all convenience stores.

I have an extra room we do not use in Arizona. Could take in a couple. ( they can not mind cats and dogs, but my home is VERYclean regardless) ..

I do not know if they would ever send anyone here, but I am willing.

I tried this with Katrina but no one wanted to come as far as AZ and that was only a couple states over.
There was a grass roots things that got started by volunteers and soon we had a system of those needing shelter and those offering it.

One idea is you could contact a local news station about it. They WILL pick it up. From there,
you can leave an email , with anyone the can help you organize.
Thats what happened with the katrina thing, and CNN picked it up, and soon it was viral as they say, and
they were able to get everything in place.

I was on 3 news stations locally here. One picked up the story, and two more were knocking at my door.

Let's see, I'll go off the top of my head to give you something to chew.

The norm is, if you aren't a citizen of a country, but you want to go to that country, you need a visa. There are exceptions to this, though, for
example, with temporary travels (holidays and such) some countries have treaties that exempts their mutual citizens from having to get a visa. They
can fly straight to the country, tell the immigration officer they are there on holiday, and get something like a one month visa.

Japan has one such treaty or agreement with the US if I am not mistaken (although there is a new procedure where you need to sign up for an electronic
verifying service separate from visas), so if they have the planet tickets to come over, they could be at your house and bunking up within 24 hours. I
know the B-2 visa (tourism visa) which you apply for through a US embassy can last up to 6 months. But I'm not sure if nationals from countries with
waived visa requirements get a different visa, or if they get the B-2 upon passing through immigration. This would not allow them to work in the
country, however.

If you want to stay on a more permanent basis, and even work, you need to get a different visa. In the US, the standard work visa is an H1B. It
requires an employer to sponsor the person coming in, which in effect says to the government, "Yes, this person is here with legal employment,
therefore he will be contributing to the company" (among other things). The filing fee is somewhere between $300 and $400 dollars. But employers
usually elect to hire an immigration attorney which itself can cost upwards of $5000 dollars. By law, employers aren't allowed to displace this
burden onto the immigrant/employee, but in practice, the immigrant/employee sometimes does (as there is no prejudice; the immigrant wants to come in
and is willing to pay, and the employer wants the immigrant to come in and doesn't want to pay). A lot of this is on the USCIS site
here.

There are other visas that you can apply for as well. If you are an investor bringing in a significant amount of capital. Or if you have some
extraordinary credentials, like being an Olympic athlete, or a Nobel laureate (I suspect celebrities apply under this category).

There's also a refugee visa, but that doesn't need to be discussed except in passing because the requirements for that visa are in line with
international law--namely that to be a refugee, you must be at threat of suffering some kind of persecution from your own country (persecution based
on categories such as race, gender, etc.).

Aside from the refugee visa, there is a similar visa granted for "Temporary Protected Status." (See
here). It is targeted specifically towards people whose countries have suffered a natural calamity.
But, TPS is not granted to persons who are not already within the United States.

Both the refugee visa and TPS will allow the holder to work in the United States, although not automatically. They need to file a separate form to
apply for work authorization. And respecting TPS, the country needs to first be designated as falling under TPS which I haven't seen the US do with
Japan yet.

To cut a long story short: You could probably take in some of the victims from the earthquake and tsunami for up to 6 months (though I think the B-2s
are granted usually for 3). But, because they would be coming in as tourists, technically, all travel costs would have to be borne by either you or
the affected. They also would not be able to work with a B-2.

There's other stuff as well, and at first glance the US provides many avenues for people to come in (and stay) legally. But these legal methods are
made circuitous by various roadblocks.

Thanks Noscible, that's a lot of options. I think that all long as we can get them here on a 6 month it would be worth it. That would buy them time
to decide if America is right for them, or if they can safely go back to their home country. We have a few on here who are supportive, I think we need
to move by posting all the information we can on here (wiki style) then we will create a new thread with all of that potential information on it.

Thanks Noscible, that's a lot of options. I think that all long as we can get them here on a 6 month it would be worth it. That would buy them time
to decide if America is right for them, or if they can safely go back to their home country. We have a few on here who are supportive, I think we need
to move by posting all the information we can on here (wiki style) then we will create a new thread with all of that potential information on it.

Absolutely. There unfortunately isn't an option that combines qualities from both the refugee visa and TPS together, where:
1) victims can apply for temporary stay within the US;
2) while outside the US;
3) with the possibility of work;
4) for as long as the crisis lasts in the home country.

That would basically fit the exact situation for the victims in Japan.
From additional searching, I found
this though.

So, the stay cap is 90 days (three months) for visa waiver countries. But, that's probably easily extended in the face of the current situation in
Japan. Also, the other electronic thing I mentioned for travel to the US that was separate to visas. I'd like to correct myself. It's actually an
electronic way for nationals from the aforementioned visa waiver countries to get permission to go to the US. It's called
ESTA.

S&F from me. Your kind of generosity is quite remarkable and I wish others could have such an open heart as you. I truly hope your post is seen and
some family that really needs it gets a safe, good home.

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